The first week of Sean Diddy’s comb’s second week, during a federal sex trafficking and blackmail trial in Manhattan, the jury finalized the event after accused racial bias on the defense team. The trial began seriously on Monday, with an opening remark followed by testimony from two witnesses.
Combs - 55-year-old rapper, producer and fashion tycoon whose rag to a few billion dollars identity The fairy tale of New York ended suddenly, his arrest and five count indictment stood in court Monday morning when leading attorney Teny Geragos described him in public statements. The second chief defense attorney told the jury that federal prosecutors were accused of two decades of abuse of women, trafficking in sex workers, turning his music and fashion empire into a criminal enterprise, were not a saint, he was not a saint. But this is not what he was accused of, why should he be found innocent.
On Monday, the day after Mother's Day, Combs's mother found a seat in a federal courtroom on the 24th floor of Lower Manhattan. Her now gray hair and bones blew a kiss as she sat. "Hi, mom, I love you," he said to her.
Before the jury finished the jury, the defense raised the "Bat Forest Challenge" in the prosecution, essentially the strike of eight potential black jurors showed that the Fed excluded potential jurors based on demographic characteristics such as race, gender, national origin, religion, religion or sexual orientation. But the government quickly shut down this down, reading about the effective reasons for the juror’s attack: A person seems to be inclined to the 17 names she recognizes may appear at trial. Another said he would miss 30% of his income for spending eight weeks on the jury, but it doesn't seem to bother, which may have an agenda for the Fed. Judge Arun Subramanian rejected the Basson Challenge and the jury was finalized.
"Sean Combs is a complex man. But it's not a complicated case. The case is about love, jealousy, infidelity and money." Glagos told the court, referring to what the defense is talking about is the motives of women and alleged victims. “There has been a lot of noise around this situation over the past year…it’s time to cancel that noise.”
In the indictment, Combs pleaded not guilty to all five charges and said he had not committed any crimes charged.
Prosecutor Emily Johnson spent significantly less time — about half an hour to Geragos' hour — laying out the feds' case against the fallen superstar to the jury: Over two decades, Combs conspired to use his business and loyal staff to stalk, harass and abuse via forced sex and drug use with male prostitutes, two women in his life — ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura and a woman he met in 2020 who is being referred to as simplified.
Johnson opened the case against the comb by telling the federal government a story about one night in the defendant's life: when he learned that Ventura was out with another man, he and a bodyguard went to find them. In the process, the government said he woke up and kidnapped a staff member, pestering his girlfriend, and when found out, the comb “brutally beat her up, kicked her in the back, waving her like a rag doll.” Other descriptions of his alleged abuse on Monday included combing his hair and throwing Ventura into the car and stomping on her face, then directing his staff to handle the cover to ensure she was in recovery for a week.
Ventura was allegedly forced to participate in a "freak" by a comb, mainly in a hotel room where she was forced to feed drugs (mainly ecstasy or MDMA) and had sex with "double dozens of male escorts" over the years because he masturbated as he watched the comb. Johnson told the jury that some "freaks" lasted for several days and participants needed intravenous injections to recover. The Fed claims that Sunderland signed a 10 Album deal with his Bad Boy Records (only one of whom saw the light of the day) for forced control of his girlfriend, threatening to undermine her music career by posting videos of having sex with male escorts.
The second alleged victim, Jane, was a single mother, whom Combs met in 2020 and was among other romantic interests of the time. She will testify that she was also forced to participate in the rapper's "freak". Jane faces him when she discovers that his other love interests are traveling and going out for dinner. The prosecutor said the comb ruthlessly defeated her at this moment, kicking several doors as she ran and hid on him, then choked her and kicked her to the ground and hit the ground and rushed down, late to the former "freak".
The defense told the jury that it was just a story of a wealthy black man with eccentric sexual tendencies and jealous women on his track who became greedy for their wealth. Geragos repeated the key points of the defense's conversations several times in his statement above the hour, and he did file a $20 million lawsuit against the comb without filing a police report against Ventura. It was the second day of comb settlement, and the river comb opened the floodgates that the toothed wood comb is now facing.
"I want you to ask yourself, how many reasons do this witness have, swearing to tell the truth, only the truth, and lie?" she asked the jury.
At some point, Glagos boldly lets the jury know that when they meet for the first time in six years, they will witness the "closure" between Cassie and the comb.
Following the opening statement, two men picked up their stance on Monday afternoon: Israel Florez, a former security official at the InterContinental Los Angeles Hotel, witnessed and filmed the rapper's infamous 2016 2016 footage of Ventura and Daniel Phillip, a man's escort employed as a "freake freak off."
Jury members also saw controversial videos of the hotel attack prosecutors, in which the comb beat and kicked Ventura and threw a hotel vase at her. In court were shown two mobile phone videos and three hotel surveillance videos related to the attack. Florez told the court that he recorded a video of the hotel's attack on his cell phone because he wanted to describe his opinion of his wife.
Florez also described the fear he felt Ventura was experiencing after the attack, thinking he was bribed by a comb when the big guy piled his pen on it and paid $100. "Don't tell anyone," Flores told him in the testimony comb. "I don't want your money. Just go back to your room," Flores recalls.
Phillips' testimony centers on the "freak" he participated with the couple. It is worth noting that the defense lawyer mainly calls the sex marathon "hotel night." He explained that in 2012, male strippers were invited by Ventura to meet at the Gramercy Hotel in Manhattan. Ventura wore red lace underwear and he first told him that she wanted to do something special for the comb. He told the court that the night started with baby oil massage.
He said the night led to his sexual relationship with Ventura, as Coms looked at him in a white robe and gave him thousands of dollars, and he was repeatedly hired to recreate the encounter. He testified that the comb asked for photos of Philip's driver's license. Sex workers testified that he believes it is a threatening tactic. Another night, he said, he witnessed the comb becoming violent with Sunderland, dragging her hair to her in another room after she told him to "hold it for a second."
During the inquiry on the prosecution, defense attorney Xavier Donaldson interrogated Phillip for an attack. Revealing here that he didn't even want money when he met the couple, he told the court: "In my mind, I'm excited, I'm in this world, and I'm happy to be involved in such a notorious person."
Ventura is expected to testify on Monday, but the testimony of the two men brought the court to the end of the day. The trial was resumed at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday.